Plane Crash Still A Mystery To Federal Investigators

With a cold wind coming off Lake Okeechobee, chilling their faces, recovery teams on boats peered through the dark as a crane mounted to a barge hoisted the twin-engine Cessna to the surface last December.

The plane, which disappeared eight days beforeduring a routine practice flight out of Fort Lauderdale with three men on board, was intact and in remarkably good shape.

For the families of the three men who died in the crash, it was a hopeful sign that clues to what happened to their loved ones would also be preserved.

Yet nine months later, federal investigators still don't know why the plane crashed while attempting to land at a small airstrip in Pahokee.

A final report by the National Transportation Safety Board is set to be released within a month. The official cause is expected to be a failure to maintain altitude, an NTSB official said.

Why that failure occurred is unknown, the report states.

"There was never any indication that there was anything wrong with the plane," said Detective David Bradford, who investigated the deaths for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

For the victims' families, the report's findings are unacceptable. Rather than live with unanswered questions, one family hired attorneys and private investigators.

What they have discovered so far is a possible malfunction with one of the plane's instruments. According to an attorney for pilot Kenneth Dodds' widow, Susan, the altimeter was pointing to 1,500 feet at the time of the Dec. 8 crash.

That suggests that Dodds, 30, of Pembroke Pines, literally flew the Cessna into the water in the darkness, thinking he was at 1,500 feet.

The NTSB disputes that, saying the instruments are not reliable because they were underwater for eight days.

However, for Susan Dodds, a radio personality known as Susan Wise at 101.5 LITE FM, the revelation provides some comfort.

"We need answers. You need some sort of closure," she said. "The important thing to us is to find out what happened."

Dodds, hired two weeks earlier by Broward-based Bimini Island Air, left with two other experienced pilots on board: William Henry Wolcott, 42, of Coconut Creek and Thomas Paul Fandel, 25, of Delray Beach. The threesome planned to practice landings at the less-crowded Pahokee airport.

While making their initial approach, the 1978 twin-engine Cessna 402-B passed over the airport at 2,500 feet into light winds with good visibility. They should have continued their descent to 1,500 feet, before making a left turn for a final approach and landing.

Instead, they disappeared from radar at 7:01 p.m. over the lake, 12 miles northwest of the airport at an altitude of 1,300 feet.

After four days of searching without any luck, recovery teams located the nose cone floating on the lake on Dec. 13.

Two days after that, a helicopter picked up a radio signal from a homing beacon still transmitting from the submerged plane's tail. Normally, aircraft locating signals last only about three days and do not normally work in water deeper than two feet.

Using a boat equipped with side-scanning sonar, rescuers finally found the plane resting upright on the bottom of the lake in 14 feet of water, about 4 miles west of the Pahokee Marina.

A propeller on the right engine was bent, the other propeller was missing and an engine was missing parts of its outer cowling. None of the windows were cracked.

The twin-propeller engines ran perfectly when tested, after water and silt was blown from the cylinders and ignition, NTSB investigator Al Stone said.

The tail rudder and flaps also were functional, Stone said, and the flaps were in the down position at the time of the crash, normal for a plane on its final approach.

He said it's difficult to tell how much fuel was in the four fuel tanks in the wings because the plane was underwater. Hoses that normally vent air from the tanks during flight, probably allowed whatever fuel was left into the water, he said.

When the Cessna was hoisted onto the barge, investigators found Dodds and Wolcott still strapped to their seats. Dodds had a cut on his forehead. Wolcott's breast bone was fractured.

Fandel, whose breast bone also was fractured, was found toward the rear of the plane near an escape hatch. The Medical Examiner's office ruled the deaths "probable drowning."

"A lot of talent"

For a practice flight, you couldn't ask for more experienced pilots, said Michael O'Brian, president of Bimini Island Air, which owned the plane.

Dodds and Wolcott were both rated as airline transport pilots, the highest rating available, and Wolcott was a former commercial jet pilot. Fandel, a certified flight instructor, aspired to become a commercial airline pilot. Among them, they had 22,000 hours of flight time.